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Thread: Motion Computing M1400, non-PAE

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Dec 2013
    Beans
    6

    Motion Computing M1400, non-PAE

    Ok so i've been banking my head on the wall for a good week now trying to solve this problem, searched every forum and tutorial, all the youtube videos the internet has to offer it seems. its possible i have missed the information but i dunno. ok so heres the problem:

    I have a Motion Computing M1400 which I decided to install UBUNTU on and did so with a roundabout method as the BIOS does not support USB boot. it does support cd and floppy boots but has neither a floppy drive nor a cd drive, it does however have two usb drives (one of which is used for the keyboard). Ok so it was over a year ago when i installed Ubuntu, so the version is 11.10? I dont know for certain. and if memory serves me right i believe i used plop (or a program similar to) in order to boot to my usb to install it. It has not worked since. It appeared to have installed OK but now it does not want to boot and i find myself in a pickle. Here is what it does:

    Turn on: loads bios fine, get to grub2 menu fine,
    'ubuntu'
    black screen with white flashing underscore in top left corner. it hangs there forever, will not change
    'advanced options for Ubuntu'
    'ubuntu, with linux 3.5.0-17-generic'
    Loading Linux 3.5.0-17-generic ...
    Loading initial ramdisk ...
    then it clears and all i see is that demented flashing underscore in the top left corner.
    'ubuntu, with linux 3.5.0-17-generic (recovery mode)'
    Loading Linux 3.5.0-17-generic ...
    Loading initial ramdisk ...
    Lots of really fast text eventually hanging with this being the last line:
    [ 0.237707] pci 0000:00:1e.0: > bridge window [mem 0x20000000-0x25ffffff pref]
    then i get that sinister flashing underscore.

    ok so ive tried everything ive found suggesting on booting to the ubuntu command line in hope that i could figure something out from there but that was in vain.
    from there i have tried to find a way to boot a live usb drive from the grub2 command line to no avail seeing as how i do not have access to the operating system on the computer.
    i then searched far and wide for some sort of way to boot a usb drive without access to the operating system and without usb bios support and return with nothing.

    I'd like to figure this thing out since its a cool little thing when it works but right now im at a loss for what to do! Please help me!!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2013
    Beans
    4

    Re: boot from a usb without bios support and no working OS

    Here's a couple of links that may help. http://debian.livejournal.com/346277.html and http://wrexallen.blogspot.com/2010/0...ing-m1400.html. The second seems to be the easiest.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Land of fire and drought
    Beans
    Hidden!
    Distro
    Xubuntu

    Re: boot from a usb without bios support and no working OS

    Do you get a list of options to boot when you start the computer? If not, try hitting ESC or Shft and that should bring up a menu list to choose kernels from. The second one down should be the recovery kernel. Choose that.

    You should see a whole bunch of text and eventually get to a list of options. One of those allows you to drop to a root shell. Do so. Log in and then type:

    Code:
    startx
    If that gives you nothing, try:

    Code:
    startlightdm
    If you get that far, one of those commands should get you to a desktop. If it does not, please report back the error. Report back regardless of where you get to.

    PS: 11.10 is well out of support. End of life was April 2013 so you want to reinstall somehow anyway. How did you install it in the first place???

    PPS: @Jack_Mathews_Jr.: Those links are very dated, but you never know, might get lucky ...
    Last edited by Bucky Ball; December 29th, 2013 at 04:42 AM.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka
    Beans
    3,449
    Distro
    Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish

    Re: boot from a usb without bios support and no working OS


  5. #5
    Join Date
    Dec 2013
    Beans
    6

    Re: boot from a usb without bios support and no working OS

    thanks jack, ive actually already found your second link and it has not helped me but ill use the first links advice and try to use my old hp to solve the problem, ill post back with my results.

    bucky ball and c.s.cameron, you two did not read the original post.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Dec 2013
    Beans
    6

    Re: boot from a usb without bios support and no working OS

    ok thats a negative, as i had expected but it was still worth a try. the hard drive is not compatible with my old hp sooo im back to square one, how can i put anything on this hard drive?? is there anything i can do with the grub2 command line that could take information from USB?? Since this thing doesnt want to finish the boot process for ubuntu i basically have no operating system and i dont think that grub2 even supports booting to a usb or anything like that. is there any way to trick it into thinking its a usb CD Drive?? would that even do any good?

    OK I MAY HAVE FOUND SOMETHING BUT DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT
    int the grub2 CLI:
    grub> chainloader (hd1)+1

    so im pretty sure hd1 is my flash drive because when i run that command the light on my flash drive flashes, but when i use "boot" it says no operating system found, its a live bootable flash drive do i need something else on it??

    I keep updating this as i find things, so chainloader will basically switch me from the grub on my HD to grub onto hd1? is that right? thats how ive been reading its functionality, so from there, is there a way to put grub onto my flash drive and from there boot whatever OS i put on the flash drive?
    Last edited by mikeisme93; December 30th, 2013 at 07:57 AM.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Dec 2013
    Beans
    6

    Re: boot from a usb without bios support and no working OS

    PROGRESS!!
    so i have a flash drive with bodhi linux on it made with unetbootin.

    from GRUB2 CDI:

    grub> set root=(hd1)
    grub> chainloader +1
    grub> boot

    that brings me to the unetbootin screen but every option to boot into the live interface gives me a message stating the kernal requires features not present on the cpu: pae

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Beans
    6,024

    Re: boot from a usb without bios support and no working OS

    Quote Originally Posted by mikeisme93 View Post
    PROGRESS!!
    that brings me to the unetbootin screen but every option to boot into the live interface gives me a message stating the kernal requires features not present on the cpu: pae
    Ubuntu have decided to no longer provide non-pae kernels.

    You can try and jump through these hoops to make it work,
    https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Lubuntu-fake-PAE
    https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PAE

    or switch to another distro that does have out of the box non-pae support.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Dec 2013
    Beans
    6

    Re: boot from a usb without bios support and no working OS

    ok ill probably end up trying those then if i have no success with android, (right now id like to just see this thing running again), I tried non-pae bodhi last night and it wasnt booting to the live session. i deleted the quiet splash and it seemed to be booting fine until it hung at the same line as in the original post. Could this be a hardware issue? or could it just be that my computer does not like ubuntu (bodhi being based on ubuntu)

    UPDATE
    nothing is working. Ive tried lubuntu, ubuntu again, bodhi, debian, puppy retro, and android for the m1400, nothing works. they ALL hang as soon as i try to boot the live session or hang if i try to install, except android. android loads the splash screen and gets to the unlock screen but at that point nothing works, the stylus doesnt work and i can do nothing with the keyboard or mouse, Im at a loss here i dont know what to do i read about people running linux on these (like debian, puppy, and bodhi), but i have zero luck on getting anything to run. This thing ran windows fine (well sort of, the keyboard would randomly give up on it) and now i cant seem to do doodoosquat with it. any suggestions?
    Last edited by mikeisme93; December 31st, 2013 at 01:00 AM.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Location
    Reykjavík, Ísland
    Beans
    13,647
    Distro
    Xubuntu

    Re: Motion Computing M1400, non-PAE

    Bringing old hardware back to life. About problems due to upgrading.
    Please visit Quick Links -> Unanswered Posts.
    Don't use this space for a list of your hardware. It only creates false hits in the search engines.

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